It’s The Little Differences That Make All The Difference…

Websites are being ‘polished’, training videos are being made – causing consumption of both coffee and Kit Kats (management issue only) to reach record levels … in short – the culmination of what is, for some here at HQ, nearly two years of work is nearly upon us…

This ‘Lowedown’ however, isn’t me telling you about my next project … you can be sure I’ll let you know all about it when the time comes – but for now, at least, it’s got to stay all hush-hush…

What I wanted to talk about today, prompted by all this activity, were all of those last minute tweaks and changes that can make all the difference to your project … differences that can really add up and make your project either a massive success or an uncomfortable struggle…

There has been plenty of ‘move this here’, ‘make that bigger’ as well as quite a bit of ‘that’s a bit superfluous’ and ‘that needs to be a bit more detailed’ – the kind of things you can’t really gauge until you see all the component parts working together.

It can be a lot of fuss to sort out … it can mean people having to redo a bit of work that was perfectly fine at the time but now doesn’t quite fit with something else – it can even mean re-jigging things over and over until they run completely smoothly … It can, in short, be a lot of effort for what might seem a little gain – so should you bother doing it?

Yes, absolutely.

The best way to iron out any kinks or things that just don’t look as right as they should, is to have some sort of ‘dry run’ of what your potential customer/user/visitor experiences as they interact with what you have to offer…

Another way of thinking of it is as a ‘Dress Rehearsal’ … when a production might find out that an actress won’t get through that door in that dress … or that a scene change takes far too long … or that a particular piece toward the back of the stage just isn’t lit well enough … and they have a chance to put everything right before presenting it to a paying audience.

Remember, I’m not suggesting that you fundamentally change what you’re doing at the last minute – that can cause a mixed message to the user about what your project is (or, in fact, isn’t) – and can leave the impression that what you have to offer is neither one thing or the other, or had extra bits cobbled on at the 11th hour (like when you can see they’ve stuck a contrived ‘happy ending’ on what is an otherwise ‘edgy movie’ to up the box office receipts and please the backers.)

I’ll close, then, by saying that so often in this business, it’s all in the detail … it can be as much as just changing a couple of words (or sometimes even just one) … changing a background colour or the size and emphasis on a certain piece of text.

These things are often not apparent until you undertake a ‘dry run’ or ‘dress rehearsal ‘ of your project in its near finished state – you will inevitably end up with a list of things it might be much easier not to bother doing as they ‘won’t make that much difference’ … but I assure you, you should never ignore even the smallest of them…